It still unclear how Victoria council is going to supply every child in the city with a free bus pass, but what is clear is that Mayor Lisa Helps likes what Kingston, Ontario is doing.

During the special committee of the whole meeting on Feb. 11, when council voted unanimously to scrap free Sunday street parking and use the money to fund youth bus passes, Helps mentioned how well free youth transit is working in the Ontario city. 

According to Kingston’s Mayor, Bryan Patterson, “well” might be an understatement. 

“It was a huge, huge hit,” Patterson said speaking on CFAX 1070. 

Back in January 2017, the City of Kingston rolled out a pilot project that began with only students in grade nine receiving free transit. Working with the school boards, the transit passes were rolled out as part of the school’s student cards. 

“The thought was that this could be a way to help students to get to know the transit system,” Patterson says. 

He admits Kingston’s transit system needed work. He says it wasn’t user-friendly and was the mode of transportation people would turn to if they didn’t have any other options. “We started to think that maybe if students are used to taking the bus for their entire period of time in high school that it would become second nature to them so that once they finished they would just become natural transit users.”

The mayor says the plan worked. 

Immediately the city and school boards began discussing extending the free passes to students in other grades. Two years later, all high school students in Kingston can ride the bus for free using their student card. 

The city shares some of the costs of the program, which the mayor ballparks to be about $100,000 a year, with the Kingston school boards. 

When asked if the Greater Victoria School Board, which overseas schools in Victoria, Esquimalt, Oak Bay, View Royal, and parts of Saanich, would do the same and share some of the costs in Victoria, Board Chair Jordan Watters says, “never say never.” 

Also speaking on CFAX 1070, Watters say the school board supports city council’s plan. “We’re all in on this, anything that brings extra support and services to our students we want to support.

Mayor Helps is planning to ask the Victoria Regional Transit Commission to supply all youth in the region with bus passes. It’s unclear how this proposal would be funded. 

BC Transit also appears to support the initiative saying in a statement, “BC Transit has been part of preliminary discussions with the City of Victoria with regards to options for implementation. We will continue to work with the City of Victoria, the school district, and the Victoria regional Transit Commission to advance this initiative in alignment with their proposed timeline and existing fare products.”

Mayor Helps had mentioned the possibility of rolling the program out as part of a pilot project, something Helps said the school board wanted, but that doesn’t appear to be part of the plans. 

The city intends to begin charging for Sunday on-street parking beginning on May 1, and supplying all youth between the ages of six and 18 with bus passes in September 2019. Riders aged five and under already ride for free. 

The Downtown Victoria Business Association and several downtown businesses support the plan, however, not everyone is sold. Former mayoral candidate and downtown businessman, Gery Beyer, who owns Tesseract Computers fears charging for Sunday street parking will drive business away.

Online the plan is receiving overwhelming criticism. According to a CFAX 1070 poll, 76% of respondents say they do not agree with the city’s decision to start charging for street parking on Sunday.

Victoria city staff believe charging for on-street parking will generate $600,000 in revenue a year. It’s still unclear exactly how much the bus passes will cost the city.

The plan still needs to be finalized as part of a budget vote on February 28.